End of Summer

by Anders de la Motte

  She recognises the vehicle and walks towards it. It stops next to the trees and Uncle Harald gets out and stretches.

  ‘You’re off on another adventure, I see.’

  ‘I’m trying to find Rooth’s farm.’

  ‘Yes, I thought as much.’ He comes a couple of steps closer. ‘Why this sudden interest in Tommy Rooth?’

  She ignores the question and gestures towards the clearing behind them.

  ‘What happened to the farm?’

  ‘The bank took it.’

  Uncle Harald takes a pipe from the breast pocket of his shirt and carefully fills it before he lights it.

  ‘Rooth was behind with his payments. The bank was threatening to foreclose and he needed money. Which is why he did what he did.’

  Uncle Harald stops and inhales deeply from the pipe. The smoke smells sweet and strong at the same time. She must have seen him smoke that pipe a thousand times.

  ‘What happened to his family?’

  ‘They moved away a year later. They weren’t exactly popular to start with, and when Billy . . .’ He leaves the rest of the sentence unsaid, but she has no trouble finishing it.

  ‘But Nilla and the children hadn’t done anything, surely?’

  He shrugs his shoulders. ‘Who knows what Nilla knew or didn’t know? I heard that Social Services in Malmö took the kids off her. Maybe that answers the question.’

  Uncle Harald takes another puff.

  ‘And you bought the farm from the bank?’

  He nods. ‘Fifty acres of prime agricultural land. The best in Skåne.’

  ‘And the buildings?’

  ‘I had them demolished.’ Another shrug, but she can hear the change in his tone of voice.

  ‘Were they in that bad a state?’

  ‘No, the house could probably have been sorted out if anyone had wanted to.’

  ‘So why did you pull it down?’

  He takes the pipe from his mouth and stares at her. The look in those deep-set eyes darkens.

  ‘For Magdalena’s sake.’

  He clears his throat as if his voice is about to break, and she wonders if it’s from anger or grief. Both, perhaps.

  ‘My father, your Grandpa Assar, you remember him, don’t you?’

  ‘A bit, I was only eight when he died.’ The sudden change of subject catches her by surprise. ‘He and Mum didn’t get on, I remember that much. Why?’

  Uncle Harald gives a wry smile. ‘No, Assar wasn’t an easy man to deal with. Even though he was from the older generation he wasn’t scared of new ideas, or of taking risks. He was quick to realise that the war was coming, and figured out that transportation was going to be more important than ever. Food, fuel, people. So he used all his savings and mortgaged the farm to buy some old trucks and buses and fit them with wood-gas generators.’

  He bites down on the pipe and lets out more smoke. ‘So when war broke out he was ready for it. He got contracts with the military and the local councils. Worked day and night. He used the money he earned to buy property and land. He’d realised that large-scale farming was the future. That you have to keep looking ahead, trying new crops, new techniques. It’s thanks to your grandfather that I dared to put my money into wind turbines, long before anyone else.’

  ‘Weren’t there a lot of rumours about him?’ she says. ‘Something about loads of wood going missing from military stores at the end of the war, and all the new tyres being switched for old, worn ones? That Grandfather had a set of keys and was the main suspect, but paid someone else to take the hit for him?’

  As she expected, Uncle Harald’s smile vanishes abruptly. ‘That’s just gossip. Lies and slander spread by people who were envious of him. People say a lot of stupid things.’

  His pipe seems to have gone out. He taps it against the heel of his wellington boot, then treads the remains of the tobacco into the ground.

  ‘You’re never here, Vera, so I don’t expect you to understand. But you have to do what they do in America. Keep looking forward. Not get caught up in the way things used to be. Anyone who doesn’t understand that . . .’

  ‘You mean people who don’t support your plans to turn this area into one massive wind farm?’

  He lets out a snort, something between a derisive snigger and a laugh. ‘Sometimes you’re so like your mother that it’s uncanny. Just as lippy, just as convinced you’re that bit smarter than everyone else. Always convinced you’re right.’

  Uncle Harald shakes his head and puts the pipe back in his pocket.

  ‘The future always arrives, Vera. Whether you want it to or not. The past, on the other hand, never comes back.’ He turns to walk back towards his car.

  ‘What if Tommy Rooth didn’t kill Billy?’ she blurts. ‘What if something else happened and Billy’s still alive?’

  He stops. She’s expecting him to be angry. Ask her what the hell she’s talking about. But instead he just laughs.

  ‘Yes, I heard you had a few ideas about that. Running around showing people pictures.’

  He takes a step towards her, tilts his head slightly and says with a gentleness in his voice that makes it harder for her to be angry with him.

  ‘Billy’s never coming back, Vera. Tommy Rooth killed him and got away with it. And at the same time he killed your mother, my little sister. Unlike your father, I’m not the sort to plant roses. I actually thought we were on the same page when it came to that, you and me.’

  Something about his tone makes her react. A note of disappointment that she doesn’t really know how to handle.

  ‘Your little brother’s buried somewhere up in the forest,’ he goes on. ‘All alone in an unmarked grave instead of in the churchyard with his mother. And it was Tommy Rooth who put him there. And for that I hope the bastard’s burning in hell.’

  He comes closer and puts his hand on her shoulder. Her first instinct is to pull away, but the gesture seems genuine, as does the look of sorrow in his eyes.

  ‘But all that belongs to the past. And now we have to look forward. You, your father, me – the whole district. Do you understand what I’m saying, Vera?’

  Chapter 45

  T

  he house is locked again when Veronica gets home, but her dad has left the spare key in the usual place. The cart shed where he parks his car is empty, so he’s probably gone shopping in the village. She goes into the study and calls her answerphone to check if Ruud has left her a message.

  She has three new messages, but in the first two all she can hear is the faint sound of someone breathing, then a click as they hang up. For a moment she gets it into her head that it might be Leon, but obviously that’s a ridiculous idea. Why would he be calling her when he’s gone to such lengths to stop her contacting him?

  She waits for the third message, expecting the same thing to happen again. The sound of a voice catches her by surprise.

  ‘This is Lars. From the therapy group. I’d like to talk to you as soon as possible. Call me.’ He gives his number, then hangs up without saying goodbye or explaining what it’s about.

  Lars, the man with the beard, the one Ruud has banned from the group until further notice. What does he want with her, and how has he got hold of her private number? She listens to the message again, but is none the wiser. As she does so she leafs idly through the papers on the desk. The documents about planning permission for the wind turbines are still there, still unsigned.

  She pulls out the top drawer, and in one of the little trays for pens, paperclips and erasers there’s an old-fashioned door key. She picks it up and weighs it in her hand, thinking about what Mattias said about the locked rooms upstairs. She checks the drive for any indication of her dad’s car before making her mind up.

  *

  Billy’s room, which used to be hers a long time ago, is to the right as you reach the top of the stairs. The key turns with no difficulty and she slips inside and closes the door behind her. The room smells of carpet and Ajax. The roll-blind in the window is pulled
halfway down, casting a gloomy light across the room.

  There’s a large photograph of Billy hanging on the wall above the bed. The same studio picture she’s got at home, the one she’s seen in the newspaper articles, just much bigger. He’s laughing towards the camera, showing his little milk teeth and the dimples in those soft cheeks. The twinkle in those blue eyes. She has to swallow hard to suppress the chill in her chest.

  Beside the photograph is one of Billy’s drawings, possibly of a rabbit, and below that, on the bed, his stuffed toys are neatly lined up against the blue wallpaper.

  She steps slowly farther into the room, and starts by opening the wardrobe door. It seems a lot smaller than she remembers, as does the dark space within. The shelves are stacked with a small boy’s clothes. She wonders if Billy used to check that the door was locked before he went to bed, the way she used to. She catches sight of the wooden rifle leaning against the wall between the bed and the bookcase. If she remembers rightly, Uncle Harald gave it to Billy one Christmas. Her little brother was probably also treated to Uncle Harald’s horrible stories, and she guesses that he liked to arm himself as well as he could to protect against the nightmares. The thought makes her chest ache.

  There are some other wooden toys on top of the bookcase. A tractor and trailer, with moving wheels and magnets to connect them. Next to them is a harrow, its blade made from the teeth of a metal comb. All three have been neatly carved and carefully painted. She knows Dad made them in his workshop, and that he must have spent many long hours getting them perfect.

  Below the toys is a row of books by Gunilla Wolde that Billy inherited from her, and beside them some shells and smooth stones he must have picked on one of the few occasions they went to the beach. The sea is sixty kilometres away, about an hour by car. Even so, they hardly ever went. The sea used to worry Mum. Veronica finds herself thinking about the smooth stone on her grave again. A stone from the sea. She regrets not slipping it into her pocket.

  The third shelf contains some small Lego models. They’re slightly too advanced for a five-year-old, so Mattias probably helped Billy to make them. Next to the models is the portable blue plastic record player, with a record still on it. Judging by the absence of dust on the black vinyl and the smell of detergent, Dad must have cleaned the room within the past few days. He probably changed the sheets as well. She carefully runs her hand over the pillow. The pillowcase, duvet cover and sheet all seem freshly laundered and smell of fabric softener.

  There’s another Lego model in the middle of the desk, not quite finished. There’s a handful of loose pieces beside it, and it looks almost as if they’re waiting for the room’s occupant to come back and put them in the right places. Next to the Lego is a small vase containing a single white rose. It looks like it came from the bush her dad was weeding around when she arrived on Saturday. The rose is fresh, and very beautiful. She leans over and smells it, then nudges the pieces of Lego, picks the model up, and puts it back down again. She moves on to the record player. This too was once hers, a Christmas present from her parents. Then, when she moved into Mattias’s room, he already had a proper stereo which he’d bought with the money he earned working in the ironmonger’s during the summer holiday, so the portable record player stayed in here, where, like so much else, it became Billy’s.

  She lifts the stylus. The machine clicks and the record begins to turn. It takes a few seconds to build up to thirty-three rpm. She puts the needle down on the vinyl, and hears a crackle from the speaker. The story is familiar, she recognises it at once from the narrator’s voice. Klas Klättermouse and the Other Animals in Hackeback Forest.

  She sits down on the bed and listens to the story, and realises that she knows it almost off by heart even though she hasn’t heard it since she was a child. She and Mum used to lie on this very bed and listen to it together.

  You’re my little mouse, Vera. My very own little Klättermouse.

  The chasm in her chest opens and becomes a dark, icy crevasse. She lies down and buries her head in the pillow. As well as fabric softener, it smells of Billy, and Mum.

  She didn’t cry when she found out Mum was dead, nor at the funeral, even though everyone else – including Uncle Harald – did. But the smell of the pillow, the story on the scratchy record and the sad little room waiting silently for a young boy to come back releases something inside her.

  She sobs so hard that her body shakes. The storyteller goes on relating the story about the animals in Hackeback Forest, and by the time she’s finished crying and her tears have been replaced by a paralysing tiredness, the needle has reached the last track on the A-side. ‘Klättermouse’s Lullaby’ – her favourite song.

  She shuts her eyes and listens to the familiar melody. And for a moment she’s five years old again. She’s had a nightmare, woke up terrified. Mum’s there, lying beside her, whispering in her ear. Making the nightmare go away.

  Hush now, little one, later there’ll be time to play. All the other mouse children are sleeping the night away.

  She can feel Mum’s breath on the back of her neck. The warmth of her body, the smell of her perfume. She curls up and listens to the lullaby.

  Sleep soundly in your crib, I won’t disturb you now.

  She wants to tell her mum that she’s not disturbing her. That she can stay as long as she likes. But the lullaby is so short, barely more than a minute long, and the needle has already reached the last line. The words that always make the nightmares creep back into the darkness. She shuts her eyes tight and whispers the words.

  The fox is also sleeping now, tail tucked around his head.

  And when the song is over Mum kisses her softly on the cheek. The bed creaks and the carpet sighs as she moves off towards the door. A faint breeze, and then she’s gone.

  Chapter 46

  W

  hen you sleep in the room you slept in as a child, the bed feels smaller, the walls and ceiling much closer than you remember them. But at the same time the smells, the rough feel of the sheets against your skin, the way sounds echo round the room are so familiar. It’s so natural, so safe. Yet still oddly unsettling.

  Perhaps that’s another reason why she doesn’t go home – because she can’t bear the idea that she no longer feels at home here, and never will again.

  *

  She’s woken by the sound of the phone ringing. Her dad’s footsteps downstairs, followed by a faint ‘Hello?’.

  It takes her several seconds to realise where she is. She gets up quickly. The record player has stopped and the needle arm has swung back to rest on its little crook. She quickly plumps the pillow and straightens the covers.

  ‘Vera?’ her dad calls from downstairs. ‘Are you there?’

  Shame at being found out, of doing something forbidden, burns inside her. She hurries out onto the landing, casts a last glance back into the room to check that it looks the same as when she went in. Then she closes the door as quietly as she can.

  ‘Coming!’ she calls, a little louder than necessary, and turns the key in the lock.

  She takes a couple of steps down the stairs, and is just about to slip the key into her pocket when she almost collides with Dad. They stand facing each other, slightly closer than feels comfortable.

  ‘Everything OK?’ he asks. ‘You look upset.’

  She closes her hand around the key and tries to keep it hidden behind her back. ‘Must have fallen asleep,’ she says. ‘Is it for me?’

  She nods in the direction of the phone and tries to slip past him. But her dad doesn’t move. He’s looking intently at her, as if he’s trying to figure out if she’s lying.

  ‘The phone,’ she says. ‘Is it someone for me?’

  He moves slightly. ‘Yes, someone from your work.’

  She hurries downstairs, aware that he’s watching her. He carries on up the stairs and she thinks she can hear the door handle of Billy’s room being pressed and then let go of again. She sneaks into the study, opens the desk drawer and puts the key
back where she found it. Then she picks up the telephone receiver, which is lying on top of one of the piles of paper. It’s Ruud.

  ‘You’re not an easy person to get hold of. Haven’t you ever heard of mobile phones?’

  ‘Mm.’ She tries to figure out how he’s managed to get hold of this number. Did she put it on any of the forms when she started work at the Civic Centre? Possibly in the bit about next of kin. That was probably it.

  ‘What are you doing down in Skåne?’ he adds.

  ‘Nothing special. Just a little trip.’ She curses her addled brain for not being able come up with a better excuse, but Ruud doesn’t seem to react.

  ‘I’ve got some good news,’ he says, sounding as if he’s holding the phone closer. ‘Bengt has submitted his report. He’s recommending that you keep your job, and I’ve managed to persuade the HR department. Come back here and I’ll tell you all about it. Can you be back in Stockholm tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Sure,’ she says. ‘No problem.’ She puts the phone down slowly, and realises that she should be feeling happy. She’s being allowed to keep her job, will get another chance to see Isak and simultaneously satisfy the part of her that’s crying out for more grief. Other people’s grief, not the sort Backagården is full of. But any sense of happiness proves elusive.

  *

  Dad makes them an early dinner before she sets off. An omelette, eaten at the kitchen table. She can sense that something’s changed between them, without quite knowing what. But that she needs to put it right, whatever it is, before she leaves.

  ‘I was at Mum’s grave yesterday,’ she says. ‘It looked really nice. The roses . . .’

  ‘Mm.’ He nods, and carries on chewing.

  She tries to think of something more to say. Anything to soften him up.

  ‘How long would you have been married now?’ It just slips out of her, but it seems to work. Her dad looks up.

  ‘Thirty-six years on 13 January.’

  ‘Of course . . .’ She bites her lip, realising that she forgot to get in touch on the last anniversary, and starts to formulate an apology. She sees him smile to himself.